Friday, December 7, 2012

Make Mine Marvel: The Monster Of Frankenstein

With Marvel riding high on the black and white horror magazines from their sister company Curtis Publications, The Monster ofFrankenstein soon debuted in January 1973 with a title change to Frankenstein's Monster with issue #6 until it ended due to poor sales with issue #18 in September of 1975. Though Roy Thomas wanted to script the title, Mike Friedrich was chosen to write the issues with Mike Ploog assigned the artistic chores. Basing his monster loosely after a John Romita drawing and trying to stay away from the look of the Universal monster, Ploog's moody scenes were the perfect choice as early sales were strong. The first four issues was a retelling of Mary Shelly's classic tale, continuing with a few yarns in the 1890s before the jump to modern times by suspended animation. Ploog was a fan favorite for the horror title but departed with the sixth issue, not wanting the creature in modern times, as John Buscema filled in with Bob Brown before Val Mayerik was picked to close out the series. Though Doug Moench's later tales were good, taking over from Friedrich, they never reached the popularity of the first classic issues with story and art. When the title was canceled the monster appeared in the Marvel magazines Monsters Unleashed and Legion Of Monsters and after guest starring throughout the seventies in other Marvel super hero titles, Frankenstein's monster mostly faded away with just a handful of appearances in the years since.